Report packages produced by Kurdish television stations display scenes of Jalawala, northern Diyala, like Iraq has never before seen. The city lays in ruins, a ghost town, where marauding militia forces belonging to Iraq’s Popular Mobilization have plundered civilian property and local businesses.

Since its liberation, the town has been overrun by Kurdish Peshmerga forces, and Iran-backed militia outfits.

The militiamen captured on film are members of Saraya al Khorasani, who admit that orders reach them from Iran’s Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander Qassim Suleimani. Despite having been subjected to an UN travel ban, Suleimani freely crisscrosses his way between his native Iran, and neighbouring Iraq.